


Aegis of Maybes

by justira



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Cover identities, Identity Issues, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-12 12:11:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19945966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justira/pseuds/justira
Summary: Zuko tells himself he and Jet don't have anything in common. But maybe Jet and Li do. It never occurred to Zuko that the peasant nobody Li could have something the prince of the Fire Nation couldn't.





	Aegis of Maybes

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to seventymilestobabylon and astirya for beta and cheerleading.

The stars left no reflections on the black waters. Zuko stood in the prow of the Ba Sing Se ferry, watching the clouded sky tilt endlessly into the lake. Behind him, the ship was quiet, if not silent. Some sounds were familiar — the hush of the wind whipping by, the waves splashing softly as the prow divided them — but most of the noises were strange to him. The ship creaked and groaned its wooden whispers, and it felt nothing like all the other times Zuko had spent at sea, for years lulled to sleep by the low rusty screech of shifting metal and the deep thrum of the steam engine, like a vast heartbeat. This ship had no heart. And it seemed so easy to burn.

Disquieting as they were, it wasn't the sounds that had Zuko awake long past moonrise. If he had not mastered it during his banishment, this fugitive life as a peasant taught him well enough to sleep in any conditions. The horizon stretched across his view, empty of coastline. He was sailing towards Ba Sing Se, not to conquer but to— cower.

Zuko jerked away from the rail. His eyes swept the deck, catching on irregular edges of shadows and the more angular lines of the staircase and pavilion.

And then the moon emerged from behind the skulking clouds again, and the shapeless shadows sharpened into the huddled forms of cold, sleeping people. Not far from where Zuko stood, he could see Uncle Iroh slumped just inside the pavilion. He looked... old. Worn out. His good hand rested on the shoulder Zuko knew must still ache on cold, damp nights like this. Another thing Zuko had failed to fix. It made Zuko turn back to the prow, dig his nails into to the wood.

Uncle had been to Ba Sing Se before. It was where his son had died. The renowned general, the heir of Zuko's country, had abandoned the city's seige in shame, Ba Sing Se's walls unbroken and his own family shattered. And here Uncle was, returning even more shamefully. The thought left strange furrows in Zuko's mind, more than his own journey to the city did. Second chances—

Zuko spun, knowing the sound only by its sudden absence; he sank into a low stance, swords half-drawn before he made out Jet emerging from the deeper gloom under the roof. What he had heard was the creak of wood under Jet's feet, blending seamlessly into the ship's own noises up until Jet had stopped walking. Zuko paused, now, watching him. They stood still for a moment, and Zuko breathed to calm down, trying to see Jet's eyes and read his intentions. But the shadows hid him too well, and then the moonlight was gone again, behind the fitful clouds, and Zuko could barely see him at all.

When Jet moved towards him, his silhouette in the cloud-scattered starlight let Zuko track him, just. Zuko didn't put away his swords until Jet had almost reached him. The moonlight scuttled briefly over them, and Zuko could see Jet eyeing him appraisingly, chewing on that straw. Zuko turned back to the rail before Jet's stare could unsettle him again. He heard Jet's footsteps approach, but kept his eyes on the slow descent of the great constellations into the sea.

Jet stopped a few feet from him, in the wide prow, and Zuko turned his head to look at him. Jet smiled, undeterred by Zuko’s frown. "Hey, you were pretty good back there."

"Thanks." Zuko looked away.

"Nice to be good with a sword," Jet said.

Zuko could hear the smirk curving the edges of the words. "It's useful," he said shortly. He knew how games like this worked, and was in no mood to play.

The silence stretched, edging into the shadows and growing dense as more clouds gathered before the moon, flattening the shimmer of the lake's restless waters into a dark mirror. Zuko stared at it, and saw no reflection.

Into that dense darkness, Jet said softly, "I learned to fight after the Fire Nation destroyed my home."

Zuko didn't look up. "People learn to fight for different reasons."

"I should have found a reason earlier."

Zuko did look up at that, but Jet wasn't looking at him. He was staring off into the distance, unseeing eyes blank with memory. But in the quiet words, Zuko heard something familiar, and Jet's eyes held a promise dark with blood. Zuko's country's blood, he knew. His father's blood. His blood— it leapt at the thought.

But the dead flicker passed from Jet’s face, and the smile returned, cocked up on one side. "Well, it's like your uncle said. Second chances."

Zuko made some sound of acknowledgement and looked away again, perturbed. Jet leaned comfortably on the railing a few feet away. Much too close for Zuko's comfort. These Earth Kingdom commoners always crowded too close. Back home in the Fire Nation they knew to keep a proper distance.

Back home.

Zuko's scowl deepened.

"What, don't you agree with your uncle?" Jet's voice again, too familiar for Zuko's liking.

Zuko jerked his head around to glare at him. "It doesn't matter what I believe. I'm not the one who decides such things."

"Huh. You really think so?"

Zuko didn't answer. He heard Jet blow out a deep breath.

"I did some things I shouldn't have. Let my anger get the best of me. I'm going to Ba Sing Se to start over. I didn't believe that was possible, but... Smellerbee and Longshot, they told me I had to... give myself a chance."

Zuko's gaze slipped sideways at that, and he saw Jet watching him intently.

"Why are you telling me this?" Zuko asked.

Jet laughed, soft but raising Zuko's hackles anyway. "You seem... angry." Then, leaning in: "I like that."

The curl of the words traveled down Zuko's spine. Zuko frowned. And thought of the way Jet's eyes had looked in the moonlight for a moment, anger like long-banked coals. Zuko elected not to move away. But he did say, "If you like that so much, why are you starting over?"

Jet let out a soft laugh again. He rested more of his weight on the arm closer to Zuko. "I'm not sure. Or not about the first part. The starting over I've sorted in my head. Over and over..." Jet tipped his head back, looking up at the unsettled sky. His throat made a long, vulnerable line to his sharp chin. "You ever think in circles, Li?"

The name snapped rough across Zuko's mind and he blinked, caught between two thoughts. Jet didn't know who he was talking to, didn't know what liberties he was taking. And Zuko... For Zuko, none of this had to mean anything. Here, right now, he was Li. He was nobody.

Zuko stopped leaning on the railing and turned to face Jet, arms crossed. "I'm familiar," he said.

"I keep thinking... there's things I don't want to leave behind. I had a whole crew, you know that? But it's just Smellerbee and Longshot with me, here." Zuko remained impassive. This was not relevant; any company he'd kept over the last years had been servants, soldiers. Friends were something a young boy had had once, a young boy with a mother and an unscarred face. Jet watched him, and smiled, hard-edged. "You don't seem the type to worry about that, though."

"I'm not."

Jet huffed another laugh. "I was like that, I think. When everything was taken from me. I thought it didn't matter. That some people didn't matter." Jet's stare went long again, passing right through Zuko. It was, Zuko thought with a chill, preferable to being seen just then. Jet had come too close to something in him, ignorant of doing it, but making his scar itch with the memory of how it happened. Then Jet blinked, and focused on Zuko's face again. "I think about that a lot. I feel like I've lost so much but... I'm going somewhere I can be a different person. Someone who cares about different things."

Zuko swallowed. And he watched Jet track the motion; watched Jet cock an eyebrow. Zuko felt his face warm at that, and gritted his teeth against it, even if Jet couldn't see the blood coming into his cheeks in the clouded night. It made him clench his fingers into his crossed arms and say, "I decided what I cared about long ago."

Jet leaned back on his elbows. "Is that right?"

"I know what's right. That hasn't changed. That _doesn't_ change."

Jet's smile curved upward. "A code of honour. I like that." His vowels stretched longer. Zuko frowned even as the low coil of them tugged as his blood. Because it did, maybe.

"It's what I believe in,” Zuko reiterated. Jet's smile edged into a grin at that, and it goaded Zuko into snapping, "What do _you_ believe in?"

"Awfully personal question, Li," Jet drawled. Draped, almost, onto the elbow closer to Zuko.

"You asked me," Zuko gritted out. _Had asked Li._

"Not sure I did. Liking the answers though." Jet cocked his head over onto his upthrust shoulder.

Zuko choked on something that could have been a snort. Definitely not a laugh. "You're being very— familiar."

"Haven't let many people get familiar, have you?" Jet purred.

"No," Zuko jerked out. His face was hot — angry, definitely, and he didn't want to examine any other reasons.

"I'm flattered," Jet said, with a slow blink. His gaze dragged up Zuko's body, and Zuko found his hand twitching for his scabbard before he could still it, a chill chasing the heat that feathered in his veins. Jet saw his hand move, and chuckled. "All right then. What I believe in, yeah?"

Zuko swallowed, hating this offering thrown so casually at his feet. "Yes," he said, and deliberately leaned back against the railing, stiff-backed, staring straight ahead.

There was silence, for a moment, in the star-scattered shadows.

"I had a whole crew," Jet repeated into the night. "The Fire Nation took so much from us." Zuko did not react to this, but Jet was continuing, "Our homes. Our families. We stuck together because..." Jet exhaled something uneven, something too jagged to be a laugh. "I guess we didn't stick together. But we wanted... We were a family, and we wanted— Justice." Jet turned to look at him, eyes boring into the side of Zuko's head.

Zuko didn't move. Didn't swallow. Didn't tighten his fingers into the rough wood of the railing in response to the heat Jet's tone unfurled in him, the icy shiver that spilled down his back at the words. It wasn't honour, not quite, but he could hear how the pull of it on Jet's bones was the same, even as the awareness that Zuko was the embodiment of everything Jet hated prickled across Zuko's skin.

Or— No.

Zuko was nobody, now. Li was nobody. Not Fire Nation. This was not a thing Zuko could have, but neither was the Fire Nation.

Zuko looked at Jet. Jet's unbroken stare was sharp, and suddenly so was his smile, as Zuko met his eyes, Jet's eyebrow rising as he said, "You _do_ like that. I knew you felt the same way."

Zuko's head jerked back at that, the undercurrents roiling in his mind. He didn't want to think about what had been taken from him, about the Fire Nation, about, least of all, the implication that he felt anything about Jet. He didn't feel anything. That fire was dead, and he stepped in to hiss in Jet's face, "You don't know me."

Jet didn't move away. "That's pretty easy to change, Li."

That name again, brushing across Zuko's skin just as Jet's breath did.

"No," Zuko said. "It's not."

"I like a challenge," Jet countered. He moved in, just, their faces close together, and Zuko sucked in air past his teeth, Jet's scent on his tongue almost choking him, hot and unsteady.

But the moonlight came pouring back across them, and Zuko jerked his head back again. Jet's eyes went— something happened there, a brief burning flame before his gaze went flat.

"No big deal," Jet said, shrugging away from Zuko and moving to step past him.

"Don't," Zuko jerked out, not turning as he heard Jet step away.

"I got it," Jet said shortly.

"No," Zuko said. "Don't." He turned. And Jet did too.

The blaze in Jet's eyes had found something equally fierce in Zuko, fierce and burning with wounded pride. There was hatred there, sharp and hot, and for a second it had pierced him down to a place where lightning had refused to go, where it had refused to come from, roiling and raw.

The moment stretched. And passed, as Jet turned to go again, but the burning stayed, and Zuko's hand had shot out to catch roughly on Jet's arm before Zuko could command it not to. A smirk tugged at Jet's lips as he turned back, but it died quickly in the face of Zuko's look, all intent steeped in years of resentment. Zuko had seen that same march of years in Jet's eyes as they had fixed on the horizon. But now Jet's eyes met his, and all trace of a smile was gone.

An imperious tug dissolving into a slow, urgent pull, and Jet took a step forward. And stopped. Zuko stared for a moment. Brushed the straw away impatiently, rough and without thought. Jet caught his hand and plucked the stem out of his fingers. Zuko frowned. Tightened his grip on Jet's arm, and there they stood, silent and tense, eyes locked and narrow.

The creeping edge of shadow retreated as a cloud passed, and moonlight silvered them abruptly, sharp and clear. It rendered Jet's eyes opaque and reflective, flat, and he yanked to get free of Zuko's hand.

"Look, if you're gonna—"

"Be quiet," Zuko interrupted.

Jet frowned for a second. Then a hard smile formed; he raised his hand to replace the straw, and moved to shrug and ease his arm out of Zuko's grip as he began again, "If you don't want —"

"I said be quiet." A hard edge, low and intense, but with no sharpness, dull and flat, even as Zuko knocked Jet's hand aside again, tightened his grip, took hold of Jet's other shoulder and pushed them both into the shadows by the cabin, the darkness swallowing the brief words and their bodies and the dangerous eyes.

Zuko heard the huff of Jet's breath as he shoved him against the cabin wall, ignored it, pushed forward, only to have Jet surge up to meet him, hard and uncompromising. The kiss was rough, fierce and hot with their breath when they broke apart, breathing quick and shallow. A pause, time for eyes to meet, and Zuko saw the flash of ferocity again, a ruthlessness and a danger, something sharp and cold. A memory of hatred and hurt, and then the burning need that had fled at the moon's hard light was back, beating hard in his veins, drowning out thought to let him close the scant distance again.

He felt Jet's smirk curve against his lips, and an annoyed growl uncoiled in him, fueling something dangerous and angry. He broke away again, to sneer or say something, but Jet followed, tracing his retreating jawline with rough, smiling lips, pausing to nip at the rapid, faint flutter of a pulse at Zuko's neck. Jet's hands were firm on his back, at his waist, running up his sides, the thin scratchy fabric of his clothes — peasant clothes, peasant hands; Zuko sucked in a sour gasp — amplifying the sensation, uncomfortable and thrilling.

His own hands had frozen, locked on Jet's arms.

Jet laughed against his neck. "First time?"

"No," Zuko gritted.

Jet snickered, and Zuko clenched a hand in his hair, swallowed the rasp Jet made as Zuko tugged his head back so he could kiss him, rougher and more urgent. It got Jet to make another sound, lower and less breathy, and Zuko swallowed that too before pulling away to reiterate, "You need to be quiet."

Jet's eyes narrowed. "That a fact?"

Zuko unbent enough to say, "We need to be quiet."

Jet tucked his chuckle into the corner of Zuko's jaw, and Zuko hated how comfortably the other boy pressed himself against him, the imposed familiarity of it. Zuko jerked him in further, erased the slower ease of it and hissed as their hips pressed together. He could feel how Jet swallowed at that, his shoulders rolling under Zuko's palm as his whole body shuddered into the motion. "Not your first time," Jet murmured against Zuko's lips, nipping at him.

"Shut up."

Jet's laugh was silent against Zuko's mouth. For a change.

It made Zuko slide his fingers up under Jet's shirt; the choked-back hiss was counterproductive but satisfying. Jet must have felt how Zuko's lips quirked at that, unbidden, because he flexed his fingers on Zuko's waist and pulled him in again, close, closer.

This, Zuko had realized, was something Li could have. _He_ could have. It was strange to think that the peasant nobody Li could have something Prince Zuko couldn’t. Stranger still to think how much Jet could guess about him. How many things about Li didn't need to be different.

The thought made him take one hand off the bare skin of Jet's side and bury it in his hair again, tugging him away so he could breathe into his face, "Follow me."

Zuko caught Jet's raised eyebrow as Zuko stepped back until he was under the edge of the pavilion. When he jumped and his fingers dug into the roof, his body felt alive with sensation, the breeze licking his skin and the wood splintery under his fingers and the shivery traces of heat roiling where Jet had touched him; the slide of muscle as he pulled himself up and over. He took off his scabbard and set it aside, and then straightened, there on the roof, and just breathed for a moment. The air felt freer up here, and he could see all the way around, the great dome of the sky a silent observer, the moon hiding secrets behind its veil of clouds. A view like he owned the world. A view Li could have, even more than Zuko could. What an unhelpful thought.

He heard the slight huff of Jet making his own jump. Watched him rise over the edge of the roof. Didn't offer him a hand up when Jet met his eyes, and Jet chuckled at this before doing a neat roll onto the roof and up onto the balls of his feet. And then further, one hand going to Zuko's waist, the other to his shoulder, a leg curling behind Zuko's— Zuko jerked, braced for the sweep, hands fisting in Jet's clothes for a grapple— but Jet was laughing in his ear again, warm tickling puffs, and Zuko realized with great indignity that he was being _dipped_.

Air escaped him, and rasped back in. It was an inhale of outrage, almost certainly, until Jet bit his ear and Zuko choked on it, choked on the anger and shame until they escaped him in an absurd noise, and another, rolling jerkily from his gut.

"Knew you could be fun," Jet murmured in his ear, and the rough warmth sharpened abruptly, Zuko not sure whether it went burning hot or ice cold, but it made his hands tighten on Jet in earnest, Zuko's body twisting to jerk the other boy out from above him and then under him.

"I am not _fun_ ," Zuko said, pressing Jet silently and solidly into the wood of the roof.

Jet blinked up at him, then tilted his head back, baring his throat, his teeth. "Who am I to argue?" he said, low, laced with the curl of his grin.

"You are—" _insolent_ , Zuko almost said, then swallowed it, realizing with a tepid wash that it was not a thing Li would say. He didn't want to think about what Li would do. Only what Li could have.

Jet quirked a brow. "Yeah?" His hands were on Zuko's hips. They felt so warm.

"You talk too much," Zuko said, and kissed him.

And Jet's hands jerked Zuko's hips in, grinding up into him, and Zuko could feel his— could feel him, had to lock his elbows, panting in Jet's face. Jet laughed, and nudged one of Zuko's arms with his shoulder, trying to get him down. Zuko opened his eyes at that, and glared at him. "Going too fast for you, Li?" Jet purred. Zuko glared harder, and Jet laughed again, head thrown back, throat long and bare, so Zuko put all his weight on one arm, and bit that throat even as his other hand moved down to close around Jet through the scratchy fabric.

Zuko felt the uneven scrape of Jet's indrawn breath through his neck, felt him swallow against Zuko's teeth, felt Jet's nails dig in through Zuko's clothing. It made Zuko's lips tighten against his teeth, curling in in a snarl with up-curved edges, something wild singing through him as Jet gathered his breath and laughed again. Zuko could feel that laugh, against his mouth, in the judder of Jet's hips. He'd never done this with laughing, before. Another thing only Li could have. That Li could do with Jet, with someone who believed in justice if not honour, and smiled when Zuko didn't want him to. He pressed his hand along Jet's length, pressed the side of his face against Jet's jaw to hide the quirk of his lips when Jet jerked in response.

"Okay," Jet breathed into the night. "Quiet." He laughed again.

"You're still talking," Zuko said into his shoulder.

Zuko felt Jet grin against his face. And then Zuko's breath punched out of him, backwash hot in his face as Jet's hands slipped under his clothes and on him, around him, Zuko impossibly aware of how long Jet's fingers were, how sure, how callused. Jet hummed in his ear and Zuko hated it, arm shuddering to hold him up, hand frozen on Jet until he realized it and stroked him, chafing through the fabric, bumping Jet's wrist. It made Jet give a chuckling hiss, a satisfied sound, and Zuko gritted his teeth to concentrate past it, past the feel of Jet's hands on him, until he'd clawed past Jet's belt and had a hand on him, the skin impossibly hot and Jet gasping this time, no laughter behind it. _Good_ , Zuko thought, and stroked.

"Li—" Jet choked, and Zuko nearly growled into his ear; it escaped as a low hiss instead before Jet said, more insistently, " _Li_."

Zuko tore himself away, up where he could breathe, where he wasn't being crowded by that name, by any name. He was panting, eyes squeezed shut. They flew open when he felt one of Jet's hands slide up his neck, his cheek — he flinched — into his hair to settle there in a slow, firm tug until Jet had Zuko looking in his eyes. It was the last thing Zuko wanted, even as Jet's other hand remained around him, trailed up him, far from firm enough. And then firmer suddenly, and gentle again; Zuko felt himself tremble and his eyes fall shut again, and this time Jet let him — _let_ him, as if that was a thing Jet could do to Zuko. To Li. As if that was a thing he could want.

Zuko's breath was hitching, but his tumult-numbed hand was moving around Jet again, and Zuko let his mind travel there, waking his fingers to the feel of Jet again, the heat and slide over muscle. Friction. Something to focus on, something to command his hand to do, command to do well and be obeyed, until he could hear Jet's breath stutter and heave. It was easier, then, to open his eyes, to let his breath pass through his lips, to let himself feel Jet's hand on him. Jet's eyes were closed when Zuko opened his own, but after a moment they met his again. The fitful light painted Jet in star-caught moments, sharp and searing: Jet was a grin, a tangle of sweaty hair, dark eyes clouded and lit with the slow burn of need, like and unlike the blaze that had drawn Zuko into this in the first place.

And that wasn't right, this was wrong, too slow, dirty and coarse — he needed that harsh light again, the clean burn of pride and anger, not this strange stupid offer and the grin that invited a dozen other nights like this. It was too wam, or not hot enough; _Jet_ was too warm, too familiar, far too foreign to be within his reach. Zuko growled and took Jet's mouth, swallowed that smile and bit at his lip, worked his hand until Jet wasn't kissing back anymore, was panting into Zuko's mouth, was—

It happened before Zuko was ready, before Zuko was _done_ , Jet coming apart beneath him with a shudder, the strangled moan caught half in Jet's throat and half in Zuko's mouth. Zuko let go as if scalded — as if he should fear heat — and then didn't know where to put his hand. He felt sticky, and stupid, and hot.

Jet was laughing again. Zuko could feel himself wilting, was shifting his weight to get up off Jet when Jet tugged him down again, put that laugh against Zuko's mouth, into it, and Jet had rolled Zuko over onto his back before Zuko could protest properly. Zuko blinked up at the sky, his breath a wild thing, unable to be caught. "You do not play _fair_ ," Jet chuckled against his cheek. Zuko could barely make the syllables assemble into words in his head.

"I don't _play_ ," Zuko gritted. His fingers dug erratically into Jet's sides; he willed them still.

"That's a _shame_ ," Jet drawled in his ear, and nipped it, and Zuko lost track of Jet's mouth until it was suddenly _on_ him, alongside Jet's hand, molten naked heat. Zuko heaved a breath, not sure if it was going in or out. His fingers scrabbled against the roof before he remembered himself and he lifted them uselessly, finally digging his fingers into his own stomach, then lower, into his hips. Jet took one of Zuko's hands in his — Zuko flinched again — and put it in his own hair, the wild damp mass off it, without Jet's mouth coming off him. Zuko's hand lay stiffly there after Jet let go, until Jet sucked on him and Zuko's hand spasmed and tangled in Jet's hair. Jet hummed around him, and Zuko panted up into the night. It seemed too easy, too— familiar, as if the words they had spoken earlier had turned into silences that meant closeness and not distance, as if the heat that had driven Zuko here could encompass this without burning him. Burning them. As if something could be forged here, with this boy who wanted justice and with himself who wanted— wanted— He let himself tug again, then push, staring up into the stars. His breath — trained to painstaking control, to breathing flame, to shouting orders — was ragged and hot and heavy, off-kilter and littered with involuntary hisses. The sky tilted endlessly around him, dizzier than before, and he blinked up at it, at the way it blurred. He remembered standing here, minutes ago, a conqueror's view. He did not feel a conqueror. He did not feel conquered. He felt hot, and sweaty, and things less easy to name but that dug into his skin, boiled in his veins. A heat that did not destroy. A warmth within his reach.

He didn't realize until he had to blink his eyes back open what had happened, that he had shuddered up into Jet's mouth. Jet was grinning at him, up the length of Zuko's body, wiping the corner of his mouth with one hand. Jet's other hand was doing up their pants, and that felt more bitingly intimate than anything else. Something that should be shared many times, or not at all.

Zuko looked back up at the sky. The clouds were thick over the moon, obscuring it, and then Jet's face was obscuring the sky in turn. "Hey there," Jet said, smirking down at him.

Zuko frowned. "We've met," he said.

Jet burst out laughing. The sound was a riot over the open water, and Zuko clapped a hand over Jet's mouth, rolled him onto his back and hissed in his face. Jet kept laughing into Zuko's hand, hot and damp on his palm, until Zuko snorted at him, and found himself doing it again, and one more time before he jerked off him and sat up. Jet sniggered silently beside him, and Zuko put one arm around his knees, put his forehead against his other palm. He worked to even his breathing, smooth his mouth flat again.

Jet hauled upright beside him, a languid lean back on his hands. "I saw that," he said, vowels curving long and warm.

"No," Zuko said. His lips felt tight.

"No?" Jet's chuckle was back. "All right. We can try that again. Second chances, right?"

Zuko turned to look at him. He didn't have an answer to that. "Maybe," he said, and looked away again, his face feeling unaccountably hot, stupid after everything else they'd done. It propelled him to get up, onto his feet.

"Sure, Li." Jet lay back down, hands behind his head, grinning up at Zuko as the moon came out and silvered the gleam of his teeth.

Zuko snorted, and walked away, picking up his scabbard, quiet chuckles chasing him as he left Jet up on the roof.

He slept alone, and woke before dawn. The morning mist was cool on his skin when he stood in the prow again. There was no moon, no light or dark. Just grey and wet, heavy with Zuko's silence as Jet came up to join him. He didn't tell Jet to leave, or stay.

Zuko waited for Ba Sing Se to emerge before him.


End file.
